e of his thoughts, the happy terseness
and epigrammatic force of his expressions, and the great early fame
which his writings acquired, nothing appears more extraordinary than
the subsequent neglect into which, for above half a century after his
death, he fell.[2] Voltaire, Rousseau, Helvetius, Condorcet, Turgot,
and the Encyclopedists, were then at the acme of their reputation; and
their doctrines as to the natural innocence of man, and the universal
moulding of human character by political institutions, not of
political institutions by human character, were too much at variance
with Montesquieu's deductions and conclusions to admit of their
coexisting together. The experience of the Revolution, both abroad and
at home, however, erelong spread a doubt among many thinking men,
whether these doctrines were in reality as well founded as they were
universally represented to be by the philosophers of the preceding
age. Napoleon, who was thoroughly convinced of their erroneous nature,
had a high admiration for Montesquieu, and frequently quoted his
sentiments. But still the opposite set of opinions, diffused over the
world with the tricolor flag, maintain their ground with the great
majority even of well-informed men, at least in all republican states
and constitutional monarchies. The policy of England in encouraging
the revolutions of Belgium, Portugal, Spain, and the South American
republics, has, for the last thirty years, been mainly founded on the
principle, that institutions similar to those of Britain may with
safety be transferred to other states, and that it is among them alone
that we are to look for durable alliances or cordial support. The
wretched fate of all the countries, strangers to the Anglo-Saxon
blood, who have been cursed with these alien constitutions, whether in
the Spanish or Italian Peninsulas, or the South American states--the
jealous spirit and frequent undisguised hostility of America--the
total failure of English institutions in Ireland, have had no effect
with the great majority of men in this country, in rooting out these
fatal errors. More than one generation, it is apparent, must descend
to their graves before they are fairly expelled from general thought
by experience and suffering. So obstinately do men cling to doctrines,
which are flattering to human vanity, in opposition alike to the
dictates of wisdom and the lessons of experience; and so true in all
ages is the doctrine of the Roman Ca